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■ 1886 



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THE 



Wreck of the Hesperus 



HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 



ILLUSTRATED 




NEW YORK 

E. P. BUTTON AND COMPANY 

31 Wp:s'r Twenty-third Street 
1887 



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Copyright, 1886, 
E. P. DuTTox AND Company. 




PRESS OF 
^ROCKWELL&( 



CHURCH I LL'S 
BOSTON. 



INTRODUCTION. 



*^ X TORMAN'S WOE" is the picturesque name 
of a rocky headland, reef, and islet on 
the coast of Massachusetts, between Gloucester 
and Magnolia. The special disaster In which the 
name originated had long been lost from memory 
when the poet Longfellow chose the spot as a 
background for his description of the " Wreck of 
the Hesperus," and gave it an association that it 
will scarcely lose while the English language 
endures. Nor does it matter to the legend lover 
that the ill-fated schooner was not '* gored " by 
the '' cruel rocks " just at this point, but nearer to 
the Gloucester coast. 

The poet has done many things well ; and he 
has done few things better than this ballad in 
the quaint, old-time style, with Its nervous energy 
and sonorous rhythm, wherein one hears the 
trampling of waves and crashing of timbers. 



INTRODUCTION. 

Indeed, it is so well done, by art concealing art, 
that much of its force and beauty escape the 
careless reader; whereas, the thoughtful one finds 
in it an ever-increasing charm. It is worth noting 
that love, the usual ballad motif, is absent and is 
not missed. The almost human struggles and 
sufferings of the vessel, and the contrast between 
the daring, scornful skipper, and the gentle, devout 
maiden, in the midst of the terrors of storm and 
wreck, furnish abundant emotion and imagery; in 
truth, many of the lines are literally packed with 
color, movement, and meaning. 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



H. WiNTHROP Pierce, W. L. Taylor, 

Edmund H. Garrett, A. Buhler, 

J. D. Woodward, H. P. Barnes, 

W. F. Hals ALL, A. J. Lewis. 



DRAWN AND ENGRAV'ED UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF 

GEORGE T. ANDREW. 



^HIS EDITION OFTHE WRECK OF THE HESPERU 



RUS IS PUBLISHED BY 
SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT WITH MESSRS. HOUGHTON, MiFFLIN & Co., 
THE AUTHORIZED PUBLISHERS OF MR. LONGFELLOW'S WORKS. 




It was the schooner Hesperus 

That sailed the wintry sea; 
And the skipper had taken his Httle daughter 

To bear him company. 




Blue were her eyes as the fairy-flax, 
Her cheeks like the dawn of day, 

And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds 
That ope in the month of May. 

The skipper he stood beside the helm, 

His pipe was in his mouth, 
And he watched how the \eering flaw did blow 

The smoke now west, now south. 










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Then up and spake an old sailor, 

Had sailed to the Spanish Main, 

" I pray thee, put into yonder port, 
For I fear a hurricane. 




" Last night the moon had a golden ring, 
And to-night no moon we see!" 

The skipper he blew a whiff from his pipe, 
And a scornful laugh laughed he. 

Colder and louder blew the wind, 

A gale from the north-east; 
The snow fell hissing in the brine, 

And the billows frothed like yeast. 






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Down came the storm, and smote amain 

The vessel in its strength ; 
She shuddered and paused, hke a frighted steed, 

Then leaped her cable's length. 





" Come hither ! come hither, my httle daughter. 

And do not tremble so ; 
For I can weather the roughest gale, 

That ever wind did blow." 

He wrapped her warm in his seaman's coat. 

Against the stinging blast; 
He cut a rope from a broken spar, 

And bound her to the mast. 






'O father! I hear the church-bells ring; 

O say, what may it be?" — 
' 'Tis a fog-bell on a rock-bound coast ! ' 

And he steered for the open sea. 

' O father ! I hear the sound of guns ; 

O say, what may it be?" — 
' Some ship in distress, that cannot live 

In such an angry sea ! " 




^--^ 




"O father! I see a gleaming light; 

O say, what may it be?" 
But the father answered never a word, — 

A frozen corpse was he. 

Lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark, 
With his face turned to the skies, 

The lantern gleamed through the gleaming snow 
On his fixed and glassy eyes. 





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Then the maiden clasped her hands and prayed 

That saved she might be ; 
And she thought of Christ, who stilled the wave, 

On the Lake of Galilee. 




And fast through the midnight dark and drear, 
Through the whistHng sleet and snow, 

Like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept 
Towards the reef of Norman's Woe. 

And ever the fitful gusts between, 

A sound came from the land ; 
It was the sound of the trampling surf. 

On the rocks and the hard sea-sand. 



The breakers were right beneath her bows, 

She drifted a dreary wreck, 
And a whooping billow swept the crew 

Like icicles from her deck. 






She struck where the white and fleecy 
waves 
'/ / Looked soft as carded wool ; 

^1 N But the cruel rocks, they gored her side 
' ^" Like the horns of an angry bull. 



\\| Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice, 
'^^ With the masts went by the board ; 

Like a vessel of glass, she strove and 
sank, 
Ho ! ho ! the breakers roared. 






^^^=^- 



At daybreak, on the bleak sea-beach, 

A fisherman stood aghast. 
To see the form of a maiden fair, 

Lashed close to a drifting mast. 

The salt sea was frozen on her breast, 

The salt tears in her eyes ; 
And he saw her hair, like the brown sea-weed. 

On the billows fall and rise. 

Such was the wreck of the Hesperus, 
In the midnight and the snow ! 

Christ save us all from a death like this, 
On the reef of Norman's Woe ! 




